Congress

House Republicans weigh vote on Obamacare extension

Published

7 months ago

December 12, 2025

Moderate House Republicans are talking with GOP leaders about possibly setting up an amendment vote that could add an extension of expiring Obamacare subsidies to a health care package expected to move across the floor next week, according to four people granted anonymity to describe internal conversations.

GOP leaders have been skeptical of such a move. But they’re currently working through whether it could pass muster with other Republicans, and it’s under discussion as centrist House Republicans grow desperate to hold off the expiration of the subsidies that more than 20 million Americans use, the four people said.

Those leadership conversations also include whether to include Texas Rep. August Pfluger’s bill redirecting the tax credits into health savings account contributions as part of the GOP health package next week.

Other options are under consideration as GOP leaders continue working on a plan Thursday, with Majority Leader Steve Scalise saying in a brief interview he wants to file the bills Friday.

Two of the GOP moderates, Rep. Jen Kiggans of Virginia and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, have launched discharge petitions to force an extension vote, but those are unlikely to succeed before the subsidies expire on Dec. 31.

Fitzpatrick spoke to Johnson about the push during a meeting in his office Thursday, according to another person granted anonymity to describe the meeting. Fitzpatrick and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) also huddled with Johnson on the floor later Thursday.

But Republican leaders are still working through what have so far been intractable issues over using the subsidies to fund abortion coverage, which risks the ire of at least some GOP hard-liners. There are fears adding it as an amendment could imperil the entire package, with key conservatives on the Rules Committee opposed to an ACA extension able to block its consideration.

But many more House Republicans — even some conservatives — believe there needs to be some sort of subsidy extension as a bridge. “I think we have to have that,” one conservative granted anonymity to speak candidly about a possible amendment.

Rep. Ralph Norman (S.C.), one of the hard-liners on the Rules Committee, said he opposes the inclusion of a subsidy extension but would not say if he would move to block it from getting a vote.

“I don’t want the discharge petition where you won’t have anything,” he said. “We’ll see how it goes.”

The House wrangling over an Obamacare patch comes after four Republican senators voted Thursday to advance a Democratic proposal for a three-year subsidy extension. There are ongoing bipartisan conversations among rank-and-file senators about how to get a deal across the finish line before they leave for the holidays.

Senate Majority John Thune has left the door open to taking up a bill if it can get through the House but said in an interview Thursday evening that he was not personally encouraging House Republicans to send over a bill.

“I’ve talked to the speaker, and I think he’s trying to gauge where his members are and see what the traffic will bear over there,” he said.

Congress

Senate Ethics dismisses allegations against Ruben Gallego

Published

3 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate Ethics Committee has dismissed allegations of misconduct levied against Sen. Ruben Gallego, who stood accused by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of “campaign finance violations and inappropriate conduct of a sexual nature.”

The charges came following the resignation of the Arizona Democrat’s longtime friend, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), who was forced to step down amid accusations of serious sexual misconduct. Luna, a Florida Republican, sought to implicate Gallego by claiming in an interview on CBS that a woman would come forward about an “incident that occurred between the two of them at the same time and the event was sexual in nature allegedly.”

But in a letter to Gallego sent Monday — which he shared in a public news release — the notoriously inactive Ethics Committee cited Gallego’s “prompt contact with the Committee following media reports of the allegations and appreciated your full cooperation with the Committee throughout the investigation.”

Gallego has maintained he was unaware of the allegations against Swalwell and said in a statement he was a victim of “right-wing conspiracies peddled by far-right activists like Anna Paulina Luna, the White House, and their allies.”

He continued, “I look forward to an apology from Rep. Luna for weaponizing the ethics process while refusing to investigate historic corruption that’s making life harder for families.”

Luna, in a post on X, defended her referral to the Senate Ethics Committee.

“The good news about DC is everyone talks, and eventually the reporters come forward with your texts,” Luna wrote on social media. “Do yourself a favor and keep raising for your legal defense fund. Once a creep always a creep, and you’re gonna need it.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misstated Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s state. She represents Florida.

Congress

Rubio, Witkoff to brief Congress on Iran

Published

6 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Top deputies of President Donald Trump will brief Congress on the Iran peace talks in a Monday conference call — the first time administration officials have addressed a broad group of lawmakers since Trump signed a “memorandum of understanding” with Tehran earlier this month.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, will lead the briefing for all House and Senate members at 4 p.m., according to seven people granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting.

Republicans and Democrats have called for more transparency about the 14-point agreement inked on June 18, which initiated a cease-fire between the two countries. Since then, the U.S. and Iran have continued to engage in hostilities.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Red, white and GOP hard-liner blues

Published

9 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Republicans finally cleared a runway this week to finish some of their top legislative priorities before the July 4 recess.

That is, unless a small band of hard-liners trip up those plans at takeoff.

Speaker Mike Johnson is hoping to move quickly to pass fiscal 2027 appropriations legislation, the annual defense policy bill and a kids online safety bill that has been years in the making. The movement comes after President Donald Trump instructed GOP hard-liners to stop holding up a procedural vote amid a protest from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna and others that the Senate hadn’t passed Trump’s election security bill.

But Luna and other hard-liners are still threatening to tank the procedural vote that could delay the defense policy bill and other measures until they get concessions on the SAVE America Act, amid other demands.

Johnson, for example, had also promised hard-liners a vote before July 4 on a sweeping GOP immigration bill introduced in the prior Congress as H.R. 2, which is highly unlikely to happen.

Johnson for his part has said the House will “pass the SAVE America Act again” by folding parts of it into a third party-line reconciliation bill. But the slimmed-down version he’d need to pursue in order to meet strict Senate rules for the budget process is already being panned by hard-liners as insufficient.

That reconciliation bill is also already delayed. House Republicans aren’t on track to meet their goal of advancing its framework before the July 4 recess as members on the Budget panel balked over how to pay for the legislation in a closed-door meeting last week.

“Time is of the essence, given how many legislative days we have,” House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie, who is sponsoring the kids online safety legislation, said in an interview last week. “If we lose a week, that would be important.”

Meanwhile, Democratic leadership is grappling with their own heated internal divisions this week. Members are split over supporting the adoption of an amendment to a fiscal 2027 spending bill from Rep. Thomas Massie that would end Israel aid and cut the overall foreign military aid program by $3.3 billion.

Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro did not instruct her colleagues on how to vote during a rare Sunday evening caucus call, two sources granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting tell Mia and Riley. Leaders did, however, criticize the amendment as poorly written.

One other item this week that could split members of each party: House lawmakers are also slated to vote on a rewritten war powers resolution from Rep. Rashida Tlaib to reign in Trump administration military actions in Lebanon. Leadership worked with Tlaib to come up with new language last month that is expected to garner more Dem support, but the resolution is still expected to fail without GOP votes.

What else we’re watching:

— SENATE GOP GETS ANTSY ABOUT NOMINATIONS: Some Republican senators are unsettled by Trump’s apparent lack of urgency in filling vacant posts, even as GOP control of the chamber beyond the midterms is increasingly in doubt. There are more than two dozen federal court vacancies. Labor secretary, FDA commissioner and scores of other open positions do not have nominees, and a senior White House official said Trump is in no rush to fill them. “We’re running short on time,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a member of Senate HELP, which oversees health, labor and other issues.

—RICK SCOTT SAYS HE’S JUST TRYING TO HELP: Fresh off his controversial Trump invite to a Senate GOP lunch last week, Sen. Rick Scott told Blue Light News in an interview he’s trying to make a mark — not trying to challenge Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Scott insists that neither his invitation to the president nor a letter he circulated afterward outlining how the Senate GOP should be preparing for the midterms should be seen as a prelude to a leadership challenge. The Florida Republican said he’s perfectly happy running the conference’s conservative Steering Committee and predicted Thune would easily secure another term as leader. What has become eminently clear in recent weeks is that Scott — after a long career in business, two terms as governor and nearly eight years as senator — just isn’t a back-bench kind of guy.

Meredith Lee Hill, Riley Rogerson, Alex Gangitano, Jordain Carney and Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.